


snapshots

by waveydnp



Series: waveydaysFICS [5]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, TATINOF, The Amazing Tour Is Not on Fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 01:09:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12244179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveydnp/pseuds/waveydnp
Summary: little moments from a big tour





	snapshots

**Author's Note:**

> waveydaysFICS week#4 topic: tatinof
> 
> check out ashley's fic tour fic @iihappydaysii

“Please no.”

“Phil, I need something to remember this magical place by.”

“Well can’t you get like, a mug or something, like a normal person?”

Dan grins. “Normalness leads to sadness, remember?”

“God.” Phil rolls his eyes. “You can remember some stupid thing I said a million years ago but not to pack more than three pairs of pants for the whole time we’re here?” 

“Shut up,” Dan squeals, giving Phil a shove and moving toward the cash. “I can always buy some. And we’re in America now, Phil, you have to call them underwear.”

“You’re really buying that thing?”

“Of course. It suits me.”

“You haven’t even tried it on yet.”

“I can just tell. It’s gonna be the start of my rebrand.”

Phil laughs. “It’s hideous.”

Dan’s jaw hangs open in mock outrage. “Right, I’m getting you one too.”

“No!” Phil’s amused pleading is loud, much louder than he’d intended. Dan tends to have that effect on him, especially when they’re on holiday, so far from home. It’s freeing, even if they are in the gift shop of an alligator-themed wildlife park in the sticky wet heat of the American south.

“I’ll get you a different one, don’t worry.”

“It’s gonna be even worse, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Dan pushes his shoulder. “Go away, I want it to be a surprise.”

Phil wanders around the small shop until he finds his mum, looking at appropriately bland souvenirs. “Mum.” 

“Child,” she replies, not looking up from the gator-adorned mug she’s examining.

“Dan’s buying me an ugly hat.”

“That’s good, love.”

“Are you ignoring me?”

“Hmm?”

Phil huffs. Kath is such a mum. 

He steps out of the shop into the blanket of Floridian humidity and waits for Dan on a nearby bench. The sun beats down on him relentlessly. He swears he can feel the new freckles forming in real time. This is one thing he loves about traveling outside the UK, to places the sun isn't obscured by cloud on a regular basis--all these new little constellations of melanin earn him extra cheek and shoulder kisses when they’re tucked up in bed at the end of the day. And he can’t deny how adorable Dan looks with his own dusting of light brown spots beneath his eyes. Phil is growing to cherish these little trips they squeeze in between conventions and meet and greets more and more with every passing year. 

He hears the squawking of birds and the bleating of various livestock. Phil shudders a little, remembering the long slimy tongue that’d licked between his fingers earlier when he’d held his hand out to feed a goat.

He looks around for Martyn and Cornelia, or his dad, but doesn’t see them. Lately he’s been trying to avoid being alone with his thoughts for any extended period of time. Left to its own devices, his brain will remind him of the massive thing they’re about to undertake, and even after touring the UK, it makes him a little nervous. America is just so  _ big _ . This family trip is the last glimmer of freedom he and Dan will have for the foreseeable future--after this it’ll be rehearsals and then travelling the length of this gigantic sprawling country in the back of a bus, performing countless shows and meeting countless fans, all the while surrounded by a crew of people, video cameras, flashing lights and prying eyes. He loves his job and his life and thanks the universe every day for the success he’s been blessed with, but that doesn’t mean the thought of it all doesn’t make his gut clench with anxiety.

Not for the first time, he’s filled with gratitude and an overwhelming sense of relief that he doesn’t have to go through even a single second of it alone. 

Dan sits next to him. “I’ve never felt better about a purchase, honestly.”

“Where’s mine, then?” Phil asks.

“Couldn’t find one ugly enough.”

Phil turns his head and gets an eyeful of the acid-wash denim, garish rhinestones and cheap plastic jewels atop the baseball cap on Dan’s head. It’s the ugliest hat Phil’s ever seen and somehow, beyond all logic or reason, it’s nothing but endearing, a horrible, glittering metaphor for the loosening of Dan’s death-grip on his carefully cultivated image. 

“I’m disturbed by how much that suits you,” Phil muses, reaching up and pulling the bill down a little. 

Dan smiles. “Told you. Don’t worry, I won’t leave America without finding you one too.”

*

It’s dark. Dan watches the blackness, the occasional square of yellow from passing headlights travelling across the brown walls of the small room they call theirs for now. It’s the middle of the night in the middle of a cornfield in America. The bed beneath him jostles lightly as the bus drives on, the gentle clink of the coffee mugs on the bedside table knocking each other creates an oddly comforting lullaby as he tries to sink as deep into rest as the man beside him. The mattress is lumpy and the duvet is ugly and smells musty. His feet hang off the edge if he doesn’t take care to curl his legs up. It’s small but in the best way, the way that gives them no choice but to wrap themselves up in each other. 

It’s not strictly the most comfortable, but it’s peaceful. He’ll never admit that out loud. He can’t. He’s not even supposed to be sleeping here, not according to anyone other than the small crew of tight-lipped, loyal friends they’ve got travelling with them. According to the majority of the people who care to wonder, Dan sleeps twisted up and pretzel-like in a tiny bunk in the middle of the hall on the bus. Tomorrow morning he may have to squeeze himself in there and pretend for the cameras that he’d spent the night crunched up uncomfortably while Phil enjoys the spoils of his rock-paper-scissors victory. 

But for now he lies here watching the lights and listening to the clinks and enjoying the steady rocking motion of the huge wheels beneath him. He leans back into the warmth of the thin, solid body that envelops him, the long arm draped over his waist, the soft, lithe fingers pushed up under his shirt that brush against his stomach. This is all he needs--Phil’s knees pushing against the backs of his thighs, Phil’s warm breath on the back of his neck. Before they’d started this leg of the tour he never would have imagined that sleeping on the bus would be one of his absolute favourite parts of the whole experience. 

Phil insists they go to sleep much earlier than they would at home, and for good reason. They have two hours of singing and dancing and performing to do most days. There are selfies and autographs and hugs with strangers and new cities to explore and new dressing rooms to acclimatize to and endless logistics to handle. They can’t stay up til three in the morning every night. He has to resist the urge to reach for his phone or his laptop once they turn out the lights. They need this sleep. 

He’d expected to feel restless in the way he hates when they’re at home, where the quiet and the dark and the ease with which Phil falls asleep make space for thoughts he tries to drown out with any distraction he can. Perhaps it’s the whirlwind of this tour, the high they’re still coasting from writing a book together and turning the connection they’d made as confused, lonely young men into a legacy they can be proud of. Maybe it’s just the pure exhaustion he feels at the end of each day, but lying here in this bed on this bus with this man, he doesn’t feel the icy tendrils of dread creeping up into his chest when he lets his mind rest like this--not right now anyway. He feels good. He feels proud. He feels tired. He laces his fingers in between Phil’s, hooks a socked foot around Phil’s ankle and closes his eyes. 

*

He feels like shit, truly. His chest is heavy, every breath ending in a cough that tenses his muscles and burns in his throat. His limbs are leaden and his head pounds and all he wants to do is curl up with his pillow that smells like home and sleep until it all goes away. And for now he can--he can curl up on their lumpy little bed, next to Dan, who’s sat up against the pillows, doing something or other on his laptop. He can let his mouth hang open and melt into the warm body of the boy next to him and sleep while the bus rolls down the long empty roads that stretch across the fields of… Iowa? Minnesota? Nebraska? He’s lost track. They all look the same: flat and vast and full of corn. Usually they just go to sleep at night and wake up in a new city anyway, so he’s lucky--lucky they’re having a driving day and there’s nothing much to see out the window. 

He doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep before he feels something tickling his forehead. He opens his eyes briefly and through the sleepy haze he sees Dan, a cheeky grin plastered across his face. He should have known--it’s one of Dan’s favourite things to do, wake Phil up in the most goofy, childish ways he can think of. This is probably his favourite though, the hair in the face. Phil’s long fringe makes him an easy target. 

He should be annoyed, honestly. He’s really not feeling well and Dan knows it, knows he needs to sleep, needs to fight this cold off before their next show. Phil should be cross, but he’s not. He can’t be when Dan looks like that, all toothy and cheeky and dimply. He closes his eyes and puckers his lips a little, a more or less instinctual reaction to waking up next to Dan at this point. He lets his head loll back onto the pillow, ready to drift back to sleep now he’s let Dan have his fun. 

He feels Dan’s fingers in his hair again and opens his eyes, confused. 

“I’m filming you.”

“Huh?” He tilts his head back and looks up at the hand that hovers above his head.  _ He’s what? _ His eyes dart around until they focus in on Dan’s other hand, and the iPhone pointing directly at him. “Ah, no!”

Dan’s a little bugger. He loves to mess with Phil but he doesn’t usually capture the evidence. Phil covers his eyes and leans into Dan, smiling in spite of himself. Now he’s going to have to watch a video of himself looking peaky and ridiculous and at the mercy of his juvenile trickster of a boyfriend. Dan cackles high and loud.

“Turn it off!” Phil laughs, nuzzling his face into Dan’s chest.

“I have done,” Dan says, reaching over and placing his phone on the bedside table.

“You’re an ass,” Phil mumbles into Dan’s green and brown Yeezy shirt. Phil hates that shirt. “What’d you do that for?”

Dan lowers his arm and wraps it around Phil’s shoulders. “Couldn’t resist. Sorry.” 

“I’m going back to sleep now,” Phil croaks, grabbing his pillow and laying it across Dan’s lap. He wriggles down and makes himself comfortable, sighing as Dan returns his fingers to Phil’s hair. “Try to control yourself.”

Dan grins, not taking his eyes off his computer screen. “No promises, mate.” 

*

“Found it.” Dan has a hand behind his back.

Phil frowns. “What?”

The ringing of the slot machines echoes in Phil’s ears, the thick smell of tobacco hanging heavy in the air. America is a world away from England, but Vegas is something else entirely. 

“I told you I wouldn’t leave America without finding you one.”

“What are you on about? You’re not supposed to buy something for  _ me _ on  _ your _ birthday.”

Dan grins, plonking a small black bedazzled fedora on top of his sweaty curls. It’s another ridiculous hat, and yet again he makes it look improbably attractive.

“Are you sure you didn’t buy it for yourself?” Phil asks, pulling his phone from his pocket. “This one suits you quite well, too.”

Dan smirks suggestively and tips the brim of the cap as Phil snaps a few photos. “What can I say, glittery hats are my new kink, I guess. Let me see.” He reaches for Phil’s phone.

Phil hands it over, knowing it always makes Dan feel better to see the photos others take of him. He gives Dan a cheeky smile. “Does that imply the old kink is out?”

Dan’s cheeks colour in rosy patches just above his jaw. “Shut up.” He looks down at Phil’s phone and adds, “No.”

“Ok, good,” Phil says, his voice low. “I like that one.”

Dan shakes his head, his bottom lip caught between his teeth to hide the embarrassed smile. Phil has a sudden desire to ditch the day’s plans and go straight back to their room. They’ve done Dan’s birthday in Vegas once before, after all, and it’s been ages since they’ve touched each other the way they’d like to. The walls on the bus are rather thin. 

“Think this one’ll make it into the book?” Phil asks. 

Dan hands the phone back to Phil and nods. “I look kind of hot, right? Even though it’s a stupid hat?”

Phil risks a quick loving stroke on Dan’s bicep. He recognizes now when Dan’s subconsciously seeking validation. Phil never passes up an opportunity to make Dan feel good about himself. “You always look hot.”

**

“Phil, I’m twenty five now.” Dan is sprawled out on the bed, still clutching the blue llamacorn tightly.

“Yes, you are.” Phil sits on the edge of the bed, attempting to pull off his shoes before realizing he hasn’t untied them yet. His head spins a little as he leans down to undo the laces. He can still taste the bitterness of the Patron they’d been drinking all night, the pungent remnants of coffee and chocolate clinging to the back of his tongue.

“I’m a quarter century old.” Dan’s arm is flung across his eyes. He’s still fully dressed. 

Phil pulls off his shoes and tosses them halfway across the room before turning to start on Dan’s. “True. And apparently you can do basic division.” He unzips Dan’s trainers and pulls them off.

Dan wiggles his newly freed toes. “Should I freak out? I might freak out.”

Phil crawls up the bed and in between Dan’s splayed legs, laying his head down against Dan’s stomach. “Don’t freak out.”

“I’m so old,” Dan whines.

“You’re twenty five.”

“Yeah. Old.”

Phil lifts his head up and digs his chin a little into the soft flesh of Dan’s belly. “What does that make me, then?”

Dan grins. “Ancient.”

“Thanks.”

“You freaked out when you turned twenty five too!”

“I did not!” Phil’s voice pitches up in protest.

Dan lifts his head and looks down at Phil quizzically. “Did you not?”

“No.”

Dan flops his head back down onto the pillow. “Oh.”

“Anyway, think of everything you’ve done in those twenty five years.”

Dan shrugs. “I guess.”

Phil sighs. “Do you really need me to stroke your ego right now and make a list?”

Dan reaches down and runs his fingers through Phil’s hair, scratching his nails lightly against the scalp. Phil sighs again, this time for a completely different reason. 

Dan’s voice is low and gravelly. “Maybe.” He gives Phil’s fringe a little tug. “Maybe I want you to stroke something else.” 

Normally Phil would just laugh or roll his eyes and tell Dan to do his own stroking. He’s an old-fashioned kind of guy--he at least likes to be kissed first. But tonight he’s drunk and it  _ is _ Dan’s birthday after all. He lifts his head again and brings his hands up to Dan’s belt buckle. “Is that right?”

Dan bites his lip. “Maybe.”

Phil pulls Dan’s belt through the buckle and pops open the button on his jeans. He grips the zipper of the fly and unzips it slowly. “Maybe?”

“Maybe,” Dan croaks.

Phil tugs Dan’s jeans down to the tops of his thighs. He pushes Dan’s shirt up and drops his lips down to kiss Dan’s pale skin along the line of his boxers. Now it’s Dan’s turn to sigh.

Phil curls his fingers under the waistband and runs the backs of his fingers along surprisingly smooth skin. Phil’s stomach swoops--Dan must have anticipated something like this. They’ve been together so long now, it’s not often they take the time and effort to groom the way they did in the beginning. “This doesn’t feel like a maybe,” Phil says, pulling the pants down a little and kissing the freshly shaved skin, taking care to brush his bottom lip ever so lightly against Dan’s growing hardness. He’s enjoying himself now. Usually it’s Dan who does the teasing.

“Maybe I want more than stroking,” Dan whispers.

Phil smiles, pulling the boxers down to sit on Dan’s thighs with his jeans. He leans down and bites the sharp jut of Dan’s hip, completely ignoring what rubs against his cheek as he does so. He latches his lips onto the skin stretched thin across the bone and sucks, hard, intent on leaving a mark they can admire later, a mouth-shaped reminder for Dan that turning twenty five hadn’t been so bad after all. 

“Phil,” Dan breathes. “Please. Don’t make me beg. Not on my birthday.” 

*

Phil leaps from the bed the instant he hears the knock on the door. Dan smiles. Nothing comes between Phil and his coffee and waffles. And these aren’t even regular waffles, they’re bacon waffles. 

“Thank you,” Phil says politely.

Dan’s still lying snuggled in the softness of the duvet. He hears a muffled female voice. 

“Wow, what a beautiful accent. It matches your face, too. What strong features you have!”

Dan grins when Phil doesn’t respond. He can picture Phil’s startled, awkward face perfectly, knowing Phil  _ still _ hasn’t mastered the art of good-naturedly enduring flirtation from strangers.

“Let me know if you ever need any more syrup, if you know what I mean.” 

Dan has to shove his fist in his mouth to keep from bursting into laughter. This woman must not have noticed the person-shaped bump beneath the covers of Phil’s bed. Or perhaps she had, and she’d decided to go for it anyway. Either way, Dan is finding it hard to contain the giggles. 

“Oh.” Phil chuckles nervously. “This is a great amount of syrup for me, thanks.” He closes the door slowly before she has a chance to respond. 

He climbs back into the bed and buries his face in the pillow. Dan’s laughing so hard that tears leak from his eyes.

“Oh my god, Phil.”

Phil groans into his pillow. “Why is it always me? Why do I attract the weirdos?”

Dan sits up and ruffles Phil’s hair. “She was hitting on you, Phil, that doesn’t make her a weirdo, that actually makes her perfectly normal and smart.” 

Phil rolls over to look at Dan, who’s grinning. He narrows his eyes. “I can’t tell if you’re trolling.”

“Me, troll? When have I ever?”

Phil sits up and hits Dan square in the face with the pillow. “Shut up.”

Dan’s still laughing, clutching his stomach. “Ow, my abs.”

Phil reaches over to grab his glasses off the bedside table. “What abs?”

“Oi, I’ve got abs. They’re just… resting right now.”

Phil rolls his eyes. “Right.”

“Shut up and pour me some coffee, syrup boy.”

*

Phil closes the dressing room door. They can still hear the crowd above them, the heavy sound of thousands of feet moving for the exits, the distant screams of overjoyed, enthusiastic teenagers. 

His skin is buzzing. No matter how many times they do this, it’s always a rush. It’s adrenaline as much as it is fear. The fear has waned a little with each passing show, but the adrenaline still lights him up every time he steps out on that stage and hears the roar from the vast sea of people who’ve paid money to see  _ him _ \--to watch him dance and hear him sing and laugh at his dumb jokes. Of course he knows that for some reason, there are lots of people in this world who care quite a lot about what he has to say, but to put so many faces to the fans he usually sees only as numbers in his view counts and comments in his liveshows is exhilarating in a way he could have never imagined.

Tonight though, he feels something more. When he closes the door on the crowd and the crew and the cameras, when it’s just the two of them, stood on opposite ends the room, breathing heavily and staring at each other wide-eyed and weak-kneed, he feels a lot more. He feels proud--of himself a little, of Dan a lot, but mostly of the collective entity that is Dan and Phil. Proud that they’d found each other and fit together so perfectly in every conceivable way, that they’d fought for each other and prioritized each other above all else, time and time again. Proud that they’d followed their hearts and ignored their parents and built a legacy together that could command the attention of millions of people and sell out shows all over the world.

He feels something else as well, something he truly hadn’t expected to feel at the end of such a massive, terrifying undertaking for two introverted, socially awkward nerds. Something akin to sadness, an inexplicable feeling of loss.

Sweat rolls down Dan’s flushed cheeks, his hair curling against the dampness of his forehead. Phil’s heart swells, so intensely it’s almost painful.

“We did it,” Dan says quietly. 

“We did it.” Phil agrees. The air is charged with some combination of emotions he can’t quite put his finger on. 

“It’s over.” Dan bites his lip. Phil thinks he sees a glisten of moisture in Dan’s eyes. 

“C’mere,” Phil says softly, holding out his hand.

Dan shakes his head, turning around so his back is facing Phil. 

Phil steps forward, all of a sudden overcome with the need to feel Dan’s body against his. There had been too many people, too many cameras on them as they’d come off the stage of their final show to hold each properly and fall apart in each other’s arms like they’d wanted to. Phil comes up right behind him. “Dan.”

Dan turns around and throws his arms over Phil’s shoulders, squeezing so tightly around the back of his neck that Phil thinks it would probably hurt if he wasn’t squeezing around Dan’s back equally as hard. They stay that way for a while, gripping each other firmly, chests pressed together with such force that Phil can feel Dan’s heart beating like it’s his own. Dan’s face is pressed into his neck, breathing heavy against the tacky skin. Phil presses his lips to Dan’s wet hair and kisses, breathes in the scent of shampoo and hairspray and sweat. He eases his grip around Dan’s back but Dan just squeezes tighter around Phil’s shoulders.

Phil rubs Dan’s back in slow gentle circles. It takes him a while to notice that the moisture that drips down his neck isn’t perspiration. “Dan,” he chokes. “Don’t.”

Phil hears a little sob escape Dan’s lips, and he knows he’s doomed. His own jumble of emotions rises up quickly, flooding out in an overwhelming rush. He’s crying, proper crying, with big fat tears and shuddering shoulders.

Dan pulls back a little and laughs, his eyes puffy, cheeks streaked with makeup that’s barely hanging on. He pushes Phil’s fringe off his forehead and takes hold of his face on either side. “Sorry, sorry. I’ll stop if you do.” 

Phil lets out a strange choked off sob, like he can’t decide anymore if he’s laughing or crying. He sniffles and nods his head.

Dan presses their foreheads together. “For god’s sake what’s wrong with us?” 

Phil doesn’t say anything, just stares into the chestnut warmth of Dan’s eyes and for the millionth time, silently gives thanks for whatever act of fate or cosmic destiny brought them together all those years ago. “I love you.”

Dan smiles. “Let’s go home.” 

**Author's Note:**

> waveydnp on tumblr :)


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